User talk:DCDuring/2011 QII

beastly

First letter was a Cyrillic capital T, identical (or very nearly) to the human eye. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:22, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I thought it might be something like that. I noted that the heading was by someone who added Russian translations. Did my retyping finally fix it or does software prevent such a retyping from taking effect? DCDuring TALK 00:47, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

It fixed it; why wouldn't it work? Mglovesfun (talk) 20:35, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Category:Importance

Please don't destroy half of my work in the middle of our discussion. I'm going to readd them, to illustrate my point of view here: WT:RFDO#Category:Importance. --Daniel. 20:24, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

If you had created the category, it would have been RfD'd. Once the RFd is begun then activity ought freeze. DCDuring TALK 13:29, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

No. The RFD box says: "Please see that page for discussion and justifications. Feel free to edit this category as normal, though do not remove the {{rfd}} until the debate has finished." --Daniel. 16:39, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Then I guess I can continue to edit as normal, including correcting categories, if we are just clinging strictly to rules. Why did you bother to chide me, if I can continue to edit as normal? DCDuring TALK 19:04, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Normal editing involves discussing disagreements. --Daniel. 19:20, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

So true. Similarly with tendentious redefinitions of core concepts like "topic category". DCDuring TALK 19:22, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Failing (as of now) to present evidence of what defines your obscure "core concept", while negating the possibility of its nonexistence, is 2 times contrary to the idea of discussing disagreements.

Now, I really would appreciate if you or someone else could provide an ideally neat, reasonable and all-encompassing system of criteria for inclusion and maintenance of topical categories. I'm trying to do that, piecemeal.

"Category:Importance" makes very much sense in my view and fits nicely with a number of topical categories for various reasons, but since I can see a contrast with a number of other categories and people dislike it, then it gets deleted. No big deal. --Daniel. 19:47, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

net net usex

Hi DCD, net net usex ... adverb?? Cheers. -- ALGRIF talk 13:05, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

en-proper noun

Unless I'm missing something, removing this template from these appendices doesn't improve Wiktionary. The appendices in question should just be deleted anyway, and seemingly futile revisions are just a tiny burden on the server and a waste of a few minutes of your time. I don't mean to be rude, and I'm not asking you anything — if you want to do it, for all I care, do it. But I don't see the point. --Daniel. 20:46, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

They aren't English proper nouns and don't belong in the category. That's why they are supposed to be relegated to a single appendix page. The individual appendix pages shouldn't be there at all. You should delete all of them. Why haven't you? DCDuring TALK 00:23, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I should do what?! Next time you want me to do something, especially taking a huge burden like this one, please use some common courtesy, son. And certainly don't imply I'm under some sort of obligation, because I am not.

The common sense indicates that the appendices you edited in the last 24 hours indeed don't belong in "Category:English proper nouns". Whether the words defined on them are or not English proper nouns is meaningless (note: most of them are!), because CFI simply doesn't allow them in the main namespace until certain citations can be found. The erroneous categorization was probably a result of a recent edit of Prince Kassad to Template:en-proper noun.

Notably, "HP4" and other abbreviations, in particular, were moved from the main namespace to the appendix namespace, and fits the former very well until further clarification of the rules. The fact that many abbreviations defined as proper nouns exist without being accepted or rejected by formal decisions certainly makes room for improvement of our conventions. --Daniel. 01:02, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

freedoms and rights

First of all, and this is mostly out of curiosity, why did you think that the "freedom of..." or "right to..." entries that I had created were considered nouns instead of phrases? I, for one, consider them to be along the same lines as that of [[shut up]], having three distinct words in succession, each of which can be considered idiomatic by themselves, or along the same lines as that of [[all rights reserved]]. Second, given that most of these have been included in the Constitution of the United States, which is a legal document, and indeed many other c, constitutions worldwide, why did you remove the "legal" qualifier? The additional commentary is of course my thoughts on the matter, and you do not necessarily have to agree with them. TeleComNasSprVen 23:38, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

1. We have tried to use the most grammatically informative PoS header and associated inflection template possible. "Phrase" does not specify what syntactic function the phrase may serve, merely serving to point out that the entry has spaces between its components, which is particularly self-evident. In contrast "shut up" is a verb and all rights reserved is, arguably, an elliptical sentence, which, as it is not a proverb, can only be classed as a phrase in our "system".
2. The context tags, "US" and, especially, "legal" imply a limit on the intelligibility or usage of the terms which does not seem to obtain. Taking your argument to an absurd conclusion "right", "to", "bear", and "arms" are all used in the very constitutions you refer to, but do not and should not have any context tags as a result. DCDuring TALK 00:24, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Etymology Problems

Hello, could you give me an example of the correct? For I do not know what are the correct templates to use. --Sekelsenmat 10:27, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

The template that caused trouble is {{etyl}}. The documentation should explain it, but the second parameter should be the ISO code for the language section. I have made changes at canibal#Portuguese:

1. added language section separator. ("----")
2. placed etymology section where our format wants it.
3. used {{term}} for an etymon used in the etymology.
4. used {{etyl}} for "spanish".
5. inserted "pt" as second parameter in {{etyl}}.
6. changed que to which.

WT:ELE explains our format in general, but the terse style of etymologies is best learned by example. Some people, including me, like "from"; some like "<". Some people like to show many cognates; not I. HTH. DCDuring TALK 11:31, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

from English

The code {{etyl|en|en}} was used deliberately to categorize the entry into Category:English twice-borrowed terms.

Your edit uncategorized the entry in question. --Daniel 03:14, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

You should let Bequwbot know, so it does not put such items on a cleanup list. Revert, correct my changes. DCDuring TALK 03:18, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I did that; thanks. --Daniel 03:43, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

rfp, rfe

Fyi, adding |lang=en to {{rfp}} and {{rfe}} categorizes the entry better. (Well, more specifically, and IMO better.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:25, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Alternatively we can make these templates assume the language is English when no language is given. --Daniel 18:31, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

We could, but others don;t want to: see [[template talk:rfp#lang=en]].​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:35, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Lassie

We should already know who Lassie is. That if anything is what the quotations are meant to show. At this point it's just a matter of distilling down the most relevant information. Why do you seek quotations for each trait easily verified by other means? That to me just sounds laborious. DAVilla 06:44, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Because we are a dictionary concerned with how words are actually used, not an encyclopedia providing relatively deep knowledge derived from authorities. A focus on usage would not be necessary if we were not being beset with encyclopedic content by contributors insensitive to usage. The fact is that dictionary definitions can and should be short because the actual meaning invoked in actual usage is not a whole panoply of attributes, but a very small subset. I think it might be very interesting to find more about which attributes of Lassie are actually evoked by usage of the name. Endless possibilities for lexicographic original research.

The meanings evoked by allusions to proper-named persons, places, and organizations and to animals and objects all seem to me arguably within the reach of usage-based lexicographical method. Of course it would be more wikiesque to simply copy and edit whatever appeared on the first line of the Wikipedia article. We have a choice of ways to go. DCDuring TALK 13:09, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Someone put a lot of work into finding citations for Lassie. Then it was deleted anyway. If that's how you expect every entry to go before we can decide if it's worth keeping, then I have a lot of words for you that I can't put here. DAVilla 15:45, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Among others, principally Daniel, I put in a lot of work on that page, sorting the citations by the attributes in the definition offered that they supported.

I don't recall deleting it. Did I? I sometimes forget such things and do things that I later disagree with.

I don't see evidence of that deletion in the history of the citations page or the deletion log, but I might not know how to find such evidence. DCDuring TALK 15:53, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Well I shouldn't have let anger get the better of me, and I'm glad I never actually spouted any of those words. No, you weren't the one to delete it, and I don't blame you for the deletion. I don't think you even voted against it. But having put so much effort into citing it (and I'm sorry I didn't realize you were one of the people who had), doesn't it seem counterproductive to have such a high requirement for a term before we even accept its admissibility? DAVilla 05:57, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I sometimes don't even fully admit to having written without basic investigation, so I appreciate your response.

I think our "policy" on proper nouns is still under development. To me this one was a trial case about encyclopedic definitions. I was trying to see what attributes were normally associated with such well-known entities (real or fictional; human, animal, vegetable, mineral, etc). As I think about it, I'm not sure that I worked on getting citations as much as sorting them by attribute supported by the quotation. I would be in favor of definitions of proper nouns that included well-defined, attestable allusive meanings. A proper noun that had such allusive meanings would seem clearly worth including even under fairly exclusive CFI, as the proper noun was conveying meaning that was more than merely an specific entity. For example, Cato, when used as a pseudonym, had enough meaning among readers in the 18th century to convey something about the moral/political stance of an author. I think it was derived from the stories in Plutarch's Lives. I don't know what is feasible for a wiki in this regard. DCDuring TALK 18:13, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

tooner

Since only you have edited it: I wonder if you could cite (deprecated template usage) tooner (TV cartoon show). I had trouble finding anything just now. Tom and Jerry's Piano Tooners kept getting in the way too! Equinox ◑ 18:28, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

It's one of the numerous examples of the Variety -er as a suffix. A question is whether it exists in any other publication. If there are only cites from there, but with different authors, would each author's use count as independent? What if there are no authors shown? In any event I'll get started. DCDuring TALK 18:43, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Cites added. Also two more senses. DCDuring TALK 20:09, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Votes/2011-04/Derivations categories

This vote hasn't really had much attention, and it ends today. I thought you might be interested. —CodeCat 19:09, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Pre-language images when only one language

As tabbed languages seems to be getting more popular, do you still wish to allow images to be above the first L2 header on pages with a single language? Otherwise I was thinking of bot-moving them down. Cheers. --Bequw → τ 16:13, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I do prefer them there for purposes of providing a little visual variety for users of all top-of-the-entry languages. I also like such ostensive definitions. OTOH I don't think very many share my preferences. In addition, the trend seems to be against English exceptionalism here at English Wiktionary. So, I am willing to defer to your judgment rather than fight a losing battle. DCDuring TALK 01:42, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Good to know. I think I'll try to cleanup pages with multiple language entries first. --Bequw → τ 22:28, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Attention ja

Is there any reason in particular for this[1] edit? --Daniel 05:27, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes. It was not categorized, as should have been self-evident. DCDuring TALK 10:52, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

OK. I didn't notice that. --Daniel 10:59, 30 June 2011 (UTC)